Does it seem like your life is a roller coaster, going from Tuesday to Tuesday? Does each fateful week pass for you, leaving only disappointment? Is there nothing you want more in life than to stop doing ToC and fling yourself bodily into Icecrown?

For you for whom patience is not enough, I give you these helpful suggestions:

10. Review the strategies for taking down long forgotten bosses as part of the Weekly Raid Quests.

Among other news, there does not appear to be any form of Quel’Delar designed for tanks (boo!). On the plus side, most of this gear is the best itemized we’ve seen to date in WoTLK, so there will be plenty of opportunities for tanking, very soon. Remember though folks, this is PTR loot so it could change very soon (not to mention this is only the loot that we’ve managed to see thus far!.

As I have mentioned before, Tarsus was the first character I made for World of Warcraft. I had dreams of Hordes of Tauren armed with pole-arms tearing it up in PvP spamming /moo. Though after I learned Tauren didn’t have access to the war totems they carried in Warcraft III he was neglected for a while, he will still be five years old in March. That’s pretty darn old for a MMO character.

But it got me thinking. At five years out, this spring, I will have been playing WoW for longer than I’ve played all other MMOs combined. Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, Anarchy Online, and Ragnarok Online all held my interest for a little while (up to two years in the case of EQ), but never for as long or sustained a period as WoW. So, why is that?

Here’s my thoughts on the matter:

I get to play it with Jov – Playing with your significant other is pretty much better than anything you could ask for, but it’s only a piece of the puzzle (after all, Blizzard is now trying to keep up both of our interests).

The non-realistic graphical style has kept itself surprisingly contemporary – While most MMOs appear seriously dated 5 years out, Blizzard seems to have picked an style that has a certain amount of wiggle room. Any updates that will be applied come Cataclysm will only likely extend its life.

Access to End-Game Content – I was lucky in some ways and thanks to great guild reputation and good references managed to get into the raiding thing pretty much right when my first character hit max level (technically a little before, I suppose). Blizzard has clearly make it a priority to keep that content as accessible as possible and this would certainly explain why.

Fun and amusing leveling content – Giving me some reason to actually level my characters means I have something to do when not raiding. It also means that if I loose my “Access to End-Game Content” I might still play the game.

A community of like-minded individuals – aka a guild. For me, EQ only stayed worthwhile as long as I was with my guild (shout out to any “Holy Monks” that might be reading). It’s demise when the end of my subscription. So it might be said for WoW as well. If Axiom ever kicked the bucket and failed to re-constitute itself (or I failed to find another guild), it probably wouldn’t be long before I was out of here.

The Warrior class – It should be worth mentioning that the actual class I play (and, at that, the one I play almost exclusively!) is a leading contender for the reason that I’m still here 5-years on. I certainly never feel like playing a Warrior tank ever gets stale. If it ever did, I’m not sure if I would be able to play something else.

Is there anything that you, dear reader, feel should be on this list? What keeps you playing when other things might lure you away?

First off thanks to those who send their good wishes. To those of you who asked: No, it isn’t swine flu.

However, for those of you who have been paying attention, the Race Change service is now available. Meaning that between this and the Faction Change you can swap your warrior tank to any other race in the game (well, except Blood Elves, but who wants them anyway?).

Why would you want to switch races? Well, let’s be straight here – you want to be the best tank you can be so you want to seek out every advantage you can get. There are different advantages that race options can give you. Let me parse them for you:

Horde

Orc – You have Blood Fury which will increase your threat and Axe Specialization that will increase your expertise with Axes. The former can be a nice boost, but the latter is gimped by the parsity of tanking axes. Boo.

Tauren – More health from Endurance and an AoE stun on a 2 minute cooldown with War Stomp. The former sounds better than it is in actuality, but I cannot even begin to say how useful the latter has been over the years.

Troll – Berserking is a nice boost to threat, though given it’s dependence on your health it can feel a little gimped on a tank since you’re not wanting to go too low on that. Other than that, there isn’t that much here… outside of pure mojo. You have to respect the mojo.

Undead – Will of the Forsaken used to be the great grand-daddy of tanking racials, but with the advent of access to Berserker Rage in Defensive stance, this is (at best) a good back-up in case you hit the button at the wrong time. Cannibalize can also be very useful under the right circumstances, but again, you’ll rarely have the opportunity to use it.

Alliance

Dwarf – Stoneform is one of those abilities that you think you won’t use until you discover just how often things hit you with debuffs. The ability to remove bleed effects is also Godly, as the only other abilities to do so also drop you off the threat table. Mace Specialization, however, is gimped due to the parsity of tanking maces.

Gnome – While I have seen some great uses for Escape Artist, this is mostly to help in situations for anyone, not specifically for tanks. Tiny Hijinks aside, you’re not going to find much more use in your tanking repertoire for gnome racials.

Human – Every Man for Himself is probably the most powerful racial in the game right now, so it bears noting that it works for most things that you would want. It’s effectively a PvP trinket that doesn’t take up an item slot. If that were not enough to think that Blizzard has it in the bag for Humans, they also get Sword Specialization – which is pretty awesome considering that the vast majority of tanking weapons or swords.

Night Elf – Quickness deserves a special mention here because bosses do not get expertise or hit. This means that your Night Elf tank is going to just have better baseline avoidance – not to shabby. Shadowmeld can also be useful when it comes to tank transfers, keeping you from accidently overtaking your friend who just taunted off you.

Draenei – Heroic Presence is a great boost to threat. It’s always on, and it works for everything you might equip. It’s also no great surprise that Gift of the Naru is good for tanking, especially in smaller groups where the mobs don’t hit quite as hard.